Privacy Policy

QSA is a full-service custom market research firm that conducts focus groups, depth interviews and surveys with consumers and decision-makers in business, government and not-for-profit organizations. Many of our surveys guide programs and policies that directly or indirectly benefit the general public.

QSA will always respect your privacy whether you are a research respondent or an individual visiting our website. We will always keep the information you provide confidential and will provide ways you can seek additional information or resolve any issues or complaints.

Privacy for Website Visitors

QSA does not actively initiate any collection of any individual information at this website. We passively collect information that is automatically sent to us by your web browser. This information typically includes your domain name (the site after the @ in your e- mail address). It may also contain your user name (the name before the @ in your e-mail address). The amount of information sent depends on the settings you have on your web browser; please refer to your browser if you want to learn what information it sends. At this page we do not actively seek to identify any individual visitor, with the exception of investigating security breaches or cooperating with authorities pursuant to a legal matter.

We use the information we automatically receive from your web browser to see which pages you visit within our site, which site you visited before coming to ours, and where you go after you leave. We at QSA can then develop statistics that are helpful to understanding how our visitors use the website. This statistical data is interpreted by QSA in its continuing effort to present the web site content that visitors are seeking in a format they find most helpful.

QSA will not use or share, either within QSA or with a third party, any information collected at this page for direct marketing purposes. Because of the nature of the Internet, we may transmit the information to another country, but within QSA, for purposes other than direct marketing, such as for storage, or because of where our servers are located. We may also use it to investigate security breaches or cooperate with authorities pursuant to a legal matter. We may also remove all the personally identifiable information and use the rest for historical, statistical or scientific purposes.

If you e-mail us, you are voluntarily releasing information to us. Your e-mail address will be used by QSA to respond to you. We will not use the information that can identify you, such as your e-mail address, for direct marketing purposes.

In addition, we may have collected similar information from you in the past. By entering this website you are consenting to the terms of our information privacy policy and to our continued use of previously collected information.

In the event of a sale, merger, liquidation, dissolution, reorganization or acquisition of QSA, or a QSA business or business unit, information QSA has collected about you may be sold or otherwise transferred. However, this will only happen if the party acquiring the information agrees to be bound by the terms of QSA’s privacy policy and the notice provided to you when the information was collected.

For your convenience, this page may contain certain hyperlinks to other QSA pages as well as to web sites outside QSA. While QSA has posted an appropriate Information Privacy Statement throughout our web site, we can make no promises or guarantees regarding data collection on the hyperlinked pages and sites that are not owned by QSA. We therefore recommend that you read the privacy policy/ statement for each site you visit.

If you are concerned about our use of your Personal Information, please contact us at bquarles@qsaresearch.com, with the subject line, “privacy,” and you may contact CASRO at info@casro.org.

Privacy for Research Respondents

QSA is a member of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and adheres to the CASRO Code of Standards and Ethics. We encourage you to read this code, particularly Section 1A on Confidentiality. If you are visiting our website or are participating in one of our research studies from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States. While the data protection and other laws of the U.S. might not be as comprehensive as those in your country, please be assured that we take steps to ensure that your privacy is protected. We also respect your right to refuse to participate in a study or answer specific questions and to ask that we refrain from contacting you in the future.

This Privacy Policy applies to all Personal Information received by QSA from research respondents whether in electronic, paper or verbal format. QSA will respect the legal requirements that exist regarding the privacy of Personal Information. It is committed to complying with all applicable law. QSA will, from time to time, review its Personal Information collection, use, and disclosure practices in order to assure compliance with laws and regulations.

QSA will give notice when Personal Information is collected or when any collected information is later to be provided to third parties. All notices will explain the need for the information and describe how the information will be used. QSA will not use Personal Information to directly market any products or services to identifiable persons unless that possibility has been disclosed in advance and it has given respondents the opportunity not to participate.

We get explicit consent for sensitive information/opt-in

QSA will maintain procedures to assure that information about children or other categories of sensitive information is only collected with explicit consent and is protected against improper use, consistent with applicable law.

We process and distribute information consistent with notice.

QSA will collect and use Personal Information consistently with the notices that have been provided. However, QSA may decide to remove identifiable features from collected Personal Information and the resulting information may then be used for statistical, historic, scientific or other purposes, consistent with applicable law.

We provide information security

QSA will maintain the security of Personal Information, and protect the integrity of such information, with a commercially reasonable degree of care.

We require others who process QSA data to comply with the QSA policy.

QSA will contractually require others who acquire or provide Personal Information from or to QSA, including those engaged to provide support services, at a minimum, to adopt and comply with the principles and objectives of this policy.

We provide a way to verify compliance and process complaints.

QSA will publish the procedures for verifying compliance and responding to complaints regarding potential deviations from its established procedures for protecting Personal Information. In addition to QSA’s internal Privacy Compliance Officer, the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO), of which QSA is a member, is another resource for questions about verification and complaint processing.

We will disclose Personal Information when required by Law or court order.

QSA will under certain circumstances permitted or required by law or court order, collect, use, and/or disclose Personal Information pursuant to procedures that do not require giving notice or conducting related activities (for example, in connection with law enforcement investigations).

We will align our Human Resource processes with the QSA policy.

QSA will align its Human Resources processes, policies, practices, and guidelines (for information that is collected or used relating to former, current, or prospective employees) to comply with this Policy.

We retain the flexibility to change this policy.

QSA will, and reserves the right to, modify and update this policy or its related business practices at any time. QSA will NOT apply changes to this policy retroactively to information QSA has previously collected.

If you are concerned about our use of your Personal Information, please contact us at bquarles@qsaresearch.com, with the subject line, “privacy” and you may also contact CASRO at info@casro.org.